"Baryo," the girl, the commander of the girls, moaned, stirring in her sleep. Gary had secured her to a padded office chair with his own belt so that she wouldn't fall out if she went into convulsions.
He didn't look at her. He couldn't - not quite yet. He knew she was dying and he knew what he would see if he turned around and looked at her and he didn't want to see it. Instead he looked out through the glass at the crowd of the dead there. They pressed up just as tightly against the windows as before but over the last few hours their desperation had slackened a bit. Not that they would be any less hungry, of course - but night, and darkness, seemed to mellow them a little. They didn't need to sleep. Gary knew that firsthand. Yet some kind of ingrained memory of their lives must be telling them that when the sun went down it was time to rest. It would be fascinating to study their behavior firsthand, Gary thought. What an opportunity to do science! The thing about sarcasm, of course, is that it's wasted when you're talking to yourself.
"Daawo," she said, behind him. He started to glance over his shoulder. Stopped himself in time.
He would have plenty of time to live among the dead and learn their ways, anyway. It had become clear to him that the Somalis wouldn't take him with them when they left. Of course they wouldn't - he was undead! Yet some sort of bizarre vestigial hope of rescue had been swelling in him every since he saw their boat out on the Hudson. In the heat of his capture and then the battle that followed he hadn't been able to think clearly but now, now... there was no escaping it. No matter how much he helped them, sucked up to them, wheedled his way into their hearts. Well. He would be lucky to get a pat on the back. More likely a bullet to the forehead would be his recompense for all his good service.
"Maxaa? Madaya ayaa i xanuunaya... gaajo."
Gary turned around and looked. The girl's face had turned the color of cigarette ash and her eyes were protruding from her head. He bent down and lifted the blanket off her legs. They had swollen up so much he could barely tell where her knees used to be.
"Canjeero," she said, plaintive. "Soor. Maya, Hilib. Hilib. Xalaal hilib. Baryo."
The infection had spread. It would be coursing through her body now, attacking her tissues wherever it could get in. When it spread to her heart and her brain she would die. He could feel the heat radiating from her face. No, not heat. Something else. A sort of energy, but not anything truly palpable. Like the vibration you feel when a heavy truck rumbles by outside. Or the way your skin crawls when you know someone is walking right behind you but you can't see them. A phantom sensation, barely liminal but there if you reached for it.
Gary reached.
"Fadlan maya," the girl moaned, as if she could sense what he was doing. Then, angrier: "Ka tegid!" He didn't know the words but he could guess the meaning. She wanted to be left alone. Just give me a second, he thought, knowing he could use some work on his bedside manner. Still, he had to know.
He didn't so much study her with his eyes or nose or ears but with something else - the hairs on the back of his arms, maybe, which was standing up or the skin behind his earlobes that tingled with anticipation. Some part of his body was responding to this weird energy she was putting off. It made his toes curl. Energy, spark, pranja, vibes - whatever you wanted to call it. It coiled around her and spun off into the air like smoke or like embers exploding out of a bonfire. It warmed his skin where it touched him, irritated him a little in a good way.
To understand a little better he stepped over to where Dekalb and the other, healthy girls were sleeping, wrapped in their colorful woven mats. He stilled himself and tried to make himself as absorbent as possible. The energy was there, in all of them, but it was very different - a compact mass of it, pulsing on a low register, vibrating like a drum. Dekalb had a little more of it - he was bigger than the girls - but the energy contained in the girls felt more vibrant, more exciting somehow.
"Waan xanuunsanahay," the wounded girl muttered.
Gary returned to her, squatted before her. Whatever this energy was - and Gary knew, knew with certainty that it was her life - it was leaking from her. Draining away. She would be dead within the hour, judging by how little of it was left in her. She would go to waste. What a strange thing to think, but there it was. She would die and she would go to waste.
Gary backed off and tore open the plastic wrapping of another slim-jim. Chewed on it pensively. He couldn't - he shouldn't look at her anymore, it was giving him bad ideas. He could control himself. It was one of the first things he'd said to Dekalb. He could think for himself. He didn't have to obey every passing whim. That had been the point of the respirator, of the ice-filled bathtub. He had kept his mind, the rational part of himself. His ability to make plans and decisions.
He pressed one hand against the the windows. The dead outside glanced at his hand for a moment, then went back to pressing their faces against the glass, staring at the people inside. Back to wanting, to needing. He was like them, in so many ways, but he had this one difference. His willpower. His will. He could resist any urge if he tried hard enough.
"Waan xanuunsanahay. Hilib."
He considered leaving, going out into the throng out there - they wouldn't hurt him, he didn't think. He was useless to them. Nothing that could concern them. He didn't know how he could open the door, however, without letting hundreds of them push their way inside before he could get out and close the door behind him.
There was just no way out. He was stuck in here - trapped, with the rest of them.
"Biyo," the girl begged. "Biyo!"
Maybe, he thought, maybe her cries would wake the others. Maybe Dekalb would wake up and realize he'd forgotten to post a guard. Maybe the girls would wake up and take care of their commander, give her what she needed. Maybe they would put her out of her misery. But they didn't even stir.
He ate another slim-jim with shaking hands but it wasn't hunger that had him so agitated, not the kind of hunger that the meat could quench, anyway.
"Takhtar! Kaalay dhaqsi!" The girl sounded almost lucid. Gary rushed to the far side of the store, to the manager's office. He found the closet and shut the door behind him. Sitting on the floor with his head between his knees he pressed his hands against his ears.
It would be alright. He could control himself. It would be alright.